2.3m
Is it already be too late to listen to Martin Tallett, the consultant, who has more than four decades’ experience in oil refining. He presented research two years ago to the United Nations’ agency charged with setting rules for the maritime industry in which he warned oil markets would be strained if tough standards for shipping fuel were imposed from 2020. Today, Tallett says he’s more concerned by an unstoppable demand surge so great that by 2020 the world will need 2.3 million barrels more oil a day than was predicted when he did his previous research. That gap is about Germany’s daily consumption.
$79m
South African prosecutors have filed a lawsuit aimed at recouping 1 billion rand ($79 million) in consultancy fees they say were unlawfully paid to McKinsey & Co. Inc. by the state power utility, after talks with the U.S. firm about voluntarily repaying the money stalled. The case is the latest twist in a series of scandals that saw billions of rand looted from state companies during Jacob Zuma’s nine-year tenure as president and has drawn in several international companies, a number of senior officials and politicians and business executives with close ties to Zuma.
75%
Goldman Sachs Group has shaken off its commodities woes, making more money in the sector in the first few months of this year than it did in all of 2017, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reports that in just four months, the bank’s net revenue in commodities surpassed its full-year performance in 2017, which had plunged to about $250 million to $300 million for the full year, the people said.
40%
Zimbabwe’s parliament has removed clauses that required foreign mining companies to list locally, according to an official record of parliament’s debates seen on Friday. The amendment to the bill also recognizes for the first time, small-scale miners, who produce more than 40 percent of Zimbabwe’s gold output . Minister Winston Chitando had last month promised to remove the requirements, which he said caused panic among foreign mining firms and worked against the government’s push to open Zimbabwe to foreign investors.
$3.52bn
Ghana’s gold output rose to 2.805 million ounces in 2017, up 10.2 percent from the previous year, data from the Ghana Chamber of Mines showed on Friday. The growth reflected a general increase in output across most of the 12 mining firms operating in the West African country, the chamber said. Total gold revenues amounted to $3.52 billion in 2017, up from $3.25 billion the year before. Ghana is Africa’s second largest gold producer after South Africa.
